Winter Prey

Lucas said.
    “That’s me. You must be Davenport,” Helper said. He had a heavy, almost Germanic voice, and stood up to shake hands. He was wearing jeans with wide red suspenders over a blue work shirt. His hand was heavy, like his body, but crusted with calluses. “A whole caravan of TV people just came out of the lake road. The sheriff let them in to take pictures of the house.”
    “Yeah, he was going to do that,” Lucas said.
    “I heard Phil Bergen is the main suspect.” Helper said it bluntly, as a challenge.
    Lucas shook his head. “We don’t have any suspects yet.”
    “That’s not the way I heard it,” Helper said. The television was playing a game show and Helper picked up a remote control and punched it off.
    “Then what you heard is wrong,” Lucas said sharply. Helper seemed to be looking for an edge. He was closed-faced, with small eyes; when he played his fingers through his beard, the fingers seemed too short for their thickness, like sausages. Lucas sat down across the round table from him and they started through the time sequence.
    “I remember seeing the car, but I didn’t remember it was right when the alarm came in,” Helper said. “I thought maybe I’d walked up and looked out the window, saw the car, and then we’d talked about something else and I’d gone back to the window again and that’s when the alarm came in. That’s not the way Dick remembers it.”
    “How sure are you? Either way?”
    Helper rubbed his forehead. “Dick’s probably right. We talked about it and he was sure.”
    “If you went to the window twice, how much time would there have been between the two trips?” Lucas asked.
    “Well, I don’t know, it would have only been a minute or two, I suppose.”
    “So even if you went twice, it wasn’t long.”
    “No, I guess not,” Helper said.
    “Did you actually see Bergen’s Jeep come out of the lake road?”
    “No, but that’s the impression I got. He was moving slow when he went past, even with the snow, and he was accelerating. Like he’d just turned the corner onto 77.”
    “Okay.” Lucas stood up, walked once around the room. Looked at the stairs.
    “What’s up there?”
    “There’s a bunk room right at the top. I live in the back. I’m the only professional firefighter here.”
    “You’re on duty twenty-four hours a day?”
    “I have time off during the day and early evenings, when we can get volunteers to pick it up,” Helper said. “But yeah, I’m here most of the time.”
    “Huh.” Lucas took a turn around the room, thumbnail pressed against his upper teeth, thinking. The time problem was becoming difficult. He looked at Helper. “What about Father Bergen? Do you know him?”
    “Not really. I don’t believe I’ve spoken six words to him. He drinks, though. He’s been busted for drunk driving, but . . .” He trailed off and looked away.
    “But what?” Helper was holding something back, but he wanted Lucas to know it.
    “Sheriff Carr’s on the county fire board,” Helper said.
    “Yeah? So what?” Lucas made his response a little short, a little tough.
    “He’s thick with Bergen. I know you’re from the outside, but if I talk, and if it gets back to Shelly, he could hurt me.” Helper let the statement lie there, waiting.
    Lucas thought it over. Helper might be trying to build an alliance or drive a wedge between himself and Carr. But for what? Most likely he was worried for exactly the reason he claimed: his job. Lucas shook his head. “It won’t get back to him if it doesn’t need to. Even if it needs to, I can keep the source to myself. If it seems reasonable.”
    Helper looked at him for a moment, judging him, then looked out the window toward the road. “Well. First off, about that drunk driving. Shelly fixed it. Fixed it a couple of times and maybe more.”
    He glanced at Lucas. There was more to come, Lucas thought. Helper mentioned the ticket-fixing as a test. “What else?” he pressed.
    Helper let it go. “There’re rumors that Father Bergen’s . . . that if you’re a careful dad, you wouldn’t want your boy singing in his choir, so to speak.”
    “He’s gay?” Gay would be interesting. Small-town gays felt all kinds of pressure, especially if they were in the closet. And a priest . . .
    “That’s what I’ve heard,” Helper said. He added, carefully, “It’s just gossip. I never gave it much thought. In fact, I don’t think it’s true. But I don’t know. With this